


Liberation

by SapphoAcolyte



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Crossover, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 05:39:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11351004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoAcolyte/pseuds/SapphoAcolyte
Summary: In the little Fire Nation town of Hasetsu, a young waterbender meets a prince. Years later, uncovered secrets force them on a quest to fulfill destiny.Yeah, it's cliche. Sue me. Ya want Victor trying to ride a flying bison? We got it. Ya want Katsuki 'Cries Every Ten Minutes' Yuuri learning to bloodbend? Then you're in the right place. Ya want more Avatar-universe angst? Dang gum, will you get angst. All aboard...."So," Yuuri asked quietly, rising reluctantly from the water. "Why exactly are you in trouble with your guardian?""Oh," smiled Victor. "I froze that soldier's dick off."Yuuri stumbled, falling back into the water. "You- you, did-""Oh," the older boy said. "You know. His dick. His weiner. His tiger-shark. His-""Yeah," choked out Yuuri, desperate to make Victor stop talking. "I got that."





	1. Chapter 1

Yuuri always hated history class.

His father had told him of the way the classes once were- filled with stories of the other nations, legends of their ancestors, detailed accounts of war and battle. Still boring, his father would chuckle, but interesting in its own way. Like line fishing in the pond behind the onsen, not necessarily exciting, but enjoyable nonetheless.

But this nonsense was unbearable.

“Air” droned one column of the class. “Lost in the wind”  
“Water” bleated the next. “Dried in the sun”  
“Earth” whined the third, kicking up the volume. “Crumbling beneath our feet!”  
“Fire!” screamed the last column, “The element of the strong!”  
“Fire!” chanted the class, minus a bleary little boy in the back, still reminiscing over afternoon fishing.  
“The light of the gods! Fire! The power of the sun! Fire! King of the world!”

  
“Katsuki,” a stern voice barked. Yuuri snuffled, startled. The teacher huffed, obviously frustrated by Yuuri’s inattentiveness. “Katsuki, would you please tell the class where the next Avatar will be born?”

  
He sighed in relief. Thank the gods, an easy question. “The Fire Nation, ma’am” he answered sweetly, trying not to sound too scared. He never saw the sliver of wood come crashing down on his knuckles, but he definitely felt the sting. Tears rushed to his eyes, and, despite his best efforts, cascaded down. Children across the room giggled. There was no entertainment quite as hilarious or faithful as the sight of Katsuki weeping at one thing or another. The teacher glared at him, letting the children have their laughs, before harrumphing and strolling back to the front of the room.

  
“Incorrect, Katsuki. The next Avatar will be born with the Air Nomads. The current Avatar has already been born, and is, at this moment, a child growing up somewhere in the Fire Nation. In fact,” the teacher turned to look a few of the children in the eye. The strong, the smart, the quick. “It could be any of you in this room.”

  
The pupils sat a little straighter in their seats at that, smiling to themselves. Yuuri kept his head down, begging his eyes to dry.

  
“Well,” the teacher smirked. “It could be almost any of you” and that was the push, from thinly concealed mocking to outright bullying. Rather than stop the tears, that last dig pushed Yuuri to choke out a sob, his cheeks and hands now flooded, far too many tears for a child of nearly eight summers. To his immense relief the village bell clanged, signifying the lunch hour. The room emptied in an instant.

 

The walk home to the Katsuki onsen was long, much closer to the road to the palace than the rest of the village. It magically became even longer when limping. Yuuri understood that, technically, one of the children in his class could be the next Avatar. But for the sake of the world, he dearly hoped that none of those bullies were.  
He managed to slip through the front of the onsen without meeting either of his parents. A small blessing, since he hated it when they worried about him.

On the way to his room he snagged a small bowl, filling it with water from the his favorite pool. He knew that it’d be easier to heal his bruises if he fully bathed, but he hated the thought of mingling with the customers.

Finally alone in his room, Yuuri knelt, with the bowl in front of him. First he submerged his knuckles, letting the heat of the water seep into his hands, hissing slightly. Breathing deeply, he...well, it was difficult to explain what he did. It was something very natural, like walking, but very exhausting, as though he were traveling uphill carrying a great burden. But doing that for long enough, while submerging his hands, was enough to knit the skin back together, and cause the bruises to fade. He sighed in relief, and with a twinge of pride.

  
Besides his mother, Yuuri was the only waterbender he had ever met. But from what he could tell, not every waterbender could heal themselves like he could. If they could, then wouldn’t every village have a waterbender to patch up scratches and bruises?

  
Yuuri definitely didn’t want to be a soldier like many of the boys in his class, but he didn’t necessarily want to run the onsen either. Mari, as the oldest sibling, was set to inherit the place anyways, and she seemed perfectly happy to take it over when their parents got older. She couldn’t firebend, like their father, or waterbend, like their mother, but she had a solid work ethic, and that got her pretty dang far.

  
Yuuri idly played with the water in the bowl as he mused, making it form beads in the air, twisting it around itself in chains, crafting a crude model of the schoolhouse and wiping it out with a tiny tsunami. Many of the people in town assumed that Yuuri couldn’t bend at all, and for now he was happy to keep it that way. But someday, he smiled to himself. He would go to the water tribe, and learn how to heal, and become the best one of them all.

  
He dipped a rag into the water, grimacing at how cold the water had grown. Gently, he held a hand over the bowl, smiling in satisfaction a few moments later as the water began to boil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fic over 500 words, definitely my first multi-chapter, any feedback and comments are greatly appreciated! <3


	2. Chapter 2

The silence inside the carriage was deafening. Yakov glared at the young prince across from him, letting the tension hang heavy in the air. Victor cleared his throat, the first noise made in the last half an hour, save for the rattle of the wheels, the clopping of the horses, and the occasional crack of the driver’s whip. 

“So,” the prince began. “I think we all learned some important lessons today.” Yakov’s expression was level, unimpressed by the weak attempt at levity.

“Mmm,” the boy grunted, struggling to meet the man’s eye. “Well, that is, I-”

“You.” Yakov parroted, still scowling.

“Ah, yes. I, well. I’m nearly twelve winters now, and soon I will take my father’s place, as Chief.”

Yakov chuckled darkly. “My prince,” the royal advisor growled. “Do you really think your behavior today makes anyone believe that you will be fit to lead the Northern Water Tribe?”

Victor gulped. “I, well, not that, but-”

“What in the world were you thinking? You antagonized our enemies, isolated our allies. Would you trust a Chief who acted so foolishly? Would you-”

“Yes!”

A flash of something across the old man’s face- surprise? Admiration? Disdain?- and Victor took the brief silence as his cue.

“Look, maybe I could have done it in a more...princely way, but I stand by my choice! That soldier was being cruel, and slaves or not, those women deserve better.”

“You ruined that man’s family!”

“He doesn’t deserve to be honored by having a family!” Victor was surprised by the heat in face, the way he was leaning towards his advisor, the clench of his fists tight at his sides. 

Yakov, who had leaned forward to mirror the angry prince, leaned back now. “Honor,” he grumbled. The old man sighed. “That’s a Fire Nation value.”

Victor, unclear on where they stood, decided to mirror his counterpart, and lean back too. He swallowed, and let a deep breath shake through him. “Well, you know. When in Ba Sing Se, do what the Earthbenders do.”

Yakov chuckled. “Oh, Victor. You’ll get yourself killed before you know it.”

Victor smirked. “Probably. But if I'm running out of time anyway, might as well sprint in style.”

 

Exhausted from the painful walk home and the subsequent healing of various bumps and bruises, Yuuri had passed out on the floor of his room, dreamily building a future for himself far from the bullies of the Hasetsu school. He was roused unceremoniously by Mari, demanding that he aided her. Apparently some important guests had stopped by. Not an uncommon occurrence, considering their proximity to the castle. 

Yuuri scuttled downstairs, threading through his family going this way and that. Though the Katsukis were never ones to panic (besides their nervous son), they had their own ways of showing stress. From the crease in his mother’s forehead to the slight hardness in his father’s voice, Yuuri quickly realized two things. 

First, that no one had send word to the onsen ahead of time, and that they had been caught with their pants at their ankles. No one visited a hot spring on the verge of summertime like this, and the onsen was far from its best, having just endured a busy winter season.

Second, judging from the sheer terror well hidden in their smiles, the elder Katsukis had either just seen a ghost or a god.

Before Yuuri could get some answers, a pile of towels were thrust into his arms, and he was directed to attend the third, and smallest onsen. He hurried off dutifully, doing his best to seem obedient and cheerful despite his exhaustion. 

He waited, back straight and smile forced, for what felt like hours. Slowly he melted, slumping against the wall, then to the ground, breathing in the steam. No one would come to this little onsen, of course. You didn’t give the youngest of the house any job that would matter.

Lazily he raised a hand, and drew up two figures from the water. Amidst the steam they seemed like spirits, possessing the water. He hummed a tune, and, fingers twirling, had the pair dance across the surface of the pool. He often had dreams of two people dancing, dipping and lifting, giving and taking. Sometimes he was one of the pair, both he and companion guiding their feet to follow the rhythm of some forgotten song. 

“You can waterbend?” said a voice, the accent vaguely foreign. 

Yuuri lurched in surprise, his humming cut short and the dancers dissipated into the steam. Yuuri wanted to confront whoever startled him, but the sudden burst of fear had closed off his throat for a moment. 

“Are you alright?” the voice drew closer, apparently oblivious to Yuuri frantically attempting to shove his heart back into his chest.

“Can I help you?” Yuuri said, wheezing, trying to cloak the anger in his voice. 

“No! No, you’re fine, I’ll just get in.” The owner of the voice, young boy, a few years older than Yuuri, then stepped into view and, without any ceremony, dropped their robe.

“I-” Yuuri began to stammer. But at the sight of the older boy’s naked body lit by the warm glow of twilight, he felt something strange within his gut. Dutifully, he packaged up that feeling, compressing it, then pushed it deep down to deal with later.

“I can, um.” Yuuri tried to offer the other boy some help, but the interloper seemed to know his way around an onsen, sliding into the water with ease, shoulders relaxing as he soaked in the steamy air.

Yuuri stared at the other boy, noting his silver hair, long and shining. Yuuri wondered if his own hair, black as tar, would look as good if he grew it out. A tiny piece inside of him briefly imagined his hair and the other boy’s hair tangling together, like moonlight streaking across the night sky. Yuuri told that piece to be quiet, there was work to do. 

“Can I, uh,” Yuuri tried to be of some use by offering assistance, but was quickly interrupted.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” cried the other boy. “Please, do come in! This onsen is absolutely delightful!”

Yuuri’s head was saying no, his heart was screaming yes, and his limbs? Well, they were beings of action, and before Yuuri quite knew what was going on, he had stripped down and slipped into the onsen, carefully positioning himself on the opposite side of the visitor. 

“I’m Victor,” beamed the visitor. “I’m hiding from my guardian.”

Yuuri sighed in relief. Ah, this boy wasn’t the important visitor after all, his guardian must be the visitor causing all the commotion. Yuuri politely introduced himself, explaining that his family ran the onsen.

Victor whistled. “Wow, I wish I could work at a place like this. Meet new people all the time, go to school, play outside. That’d be wonderful.”

Yuuri furrowed his brow, confused. “Wait, where are you from that doesn’t have school?”

“Oh, the Northern Water Tribe has school. I just don’t go to it.”

Yuuri's eyebrows raised. “That’s where my mom is from!” 

“Really? Then why do you live here?” Victor waved a hand dismissively. As much as Yuuri sometimes hated living in Hasetsu, he felt defensive at Victor’s slight. 

“Well, it’s better than freezing my butt off on some glacier!” As soon as the words left his mouth, Yuuri regretted them. 

Victor gasped, offended. “A glacier?! I live in a palace!”

“You...live in a what?” Yuuri felt his heart drop through his chest.

“A palace! Duh! Where else would the prince of the Water Tribe live?”

The onsen was quiet, the tension between the two boys as hot as the steam surrounding them, before Yuuri finally settled on a quiet, muttered, “Bullshit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LET YUURI SAY FUCK 2K17
> 
> gay thoughts? in YOUR onsen? it's more likely than you think
> 
> ok but really thanks for reading and commenting, more to come soon!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my FIRST fic over 500 words, definitely my first with multiple chapters! I have a looooot of this story written, need to work on some in-between chapters but it's definitely on its way. Please leave a comment with any feedback! <3


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